south korea

Samsung loves their pink phones. If you're anywhere in Asia you can probably pick up a pink Galaxy S II at your local Qi-Shiyi, but alas, that option has been sadly missing from the Galaxy Note. Not anymore: a new "Berry Pink" version on the extra-large smartphone was unveiled in Samsung's home territory of South Korea yesterday. If you simply must have the right hue to match your lip gloss, toenails and/or Tazer, this is the one for you. Sammy says that the pink version will go on sale on April 17th, presumably for the same price as the more sedate colors. The pink version was previously spotted at CeBIT.

The Optimus 4X HD isn't the only fancy new superphone in the works from LG, if a report from Korean site DDaily is to be believed. There's a new phone, codenamed the "D1L", which was spotted in a recent company roadmap (second from the bottom in the right column). There's some drool-worthy hardware there to be sure - 4.7-inch 720p screen, a Snapdragon S4 processor and an LTE connection. But none are so noteworthy as the promised inclusion of Ice Cream Sandwich, a software feature that's all too often absent even months after the open source code was released. The D1L is slated for release in May, though that's almost certainly its South Korean date.
The LTE connection and the decision to go with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip architecture go hand in hand. NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3, all the rage at Mobile World Congress two months ago, isn't compatible with super-fast LTE connections yet. Not that many will mind: our own benchmark tests of the HTC One Series show the dual-core Snapdragon S4 beating the Tegra 3 by a factor of 20% - not bad at all. High-end features like a 720p screen (probably using LG's excellent IPS panels) are icing on the cake.
The D1L's specs line up pretty closely to the Optimus 4X HD, with the exception of the chipset and wireless standard. I'm betting the D1L (soon to be renamed something like the Optimus D LTE 4HD SUV) will be offered to LTE carriers in South Korea and North America, while those with HSPA+ standard (most carriers around the world) will get a shot at the Optimus 4X HD. The latter is also rumored to become available in May, and also has a 4.7-inch 720p screen and Ice Cream Sandwich.
[via SlashGear]

Say, Galaxy S owners, you don't want Ice Cream Sandwich, do you? No, that great performance and all those posh new features are for snobs who buy more than one phone every two years. Surely you'll be more than satisfied with a few ICS imitation features added to reliable old TouchWiz via a "Value Pack". Sarcasm aside, that's the attitude that Samsung seems to be adopting with its add-on Value Pack for Gingerbread. The first country to get the update for the Galaxy S is Sammy's home state of South Korea.

More Galaxy S III rumors - today must end with a "y", then. In its latest batch of corporate teasing, Samsung has found a surreptitious way to whet our appetites for the new flagship phone long before they even announce when they're announcing it. The Korea Times quotes an unnamed Samsung executive, who said that the company is looking to lower its dependence on silicon giant Qualcomm and go with an in-house solution. That will come in the the form of a quad-core Exynos system-on-a-chip, though the exact model, speed and capability are all up in the air at the moment. That's all you get; check back in another week for a tiny nugget of new information.

Here's an interesting one for your morning Android news digest: a high-end Pantech phone has leaked out in a series of pre-release sordid details. The IM-A830S doesn't have a proper name just yet, but it does have a series of impressive specifications, starting with Android 4.0.3 loaded at launch - whenever that is. Blog of Mobile spotted the phone sitting in a benchmark pool along with a series of impressive hardware specifications. While this shouldn't be considered any sort of confirmation, it's a definite indication of exciting things coming out of Pantech.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.7 has been one of the companies most hotly-anticipated tablets, due in no small part to its 7.7-inch Super AMOLED screen. While WiFi versions have been available for some time in Europe and the US has an LTE version from Verizon, Samsung's home country of South Korea has been sadly bereft of a 7.7 model of its own. Until now: Samsung announced that the Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE is coming to South Korea from SK Telecom. It'll be priced at 800,000 won without a contract, or just a little north of $700 USD.

Tired of the back-and-forth from Samsung on the release of the Ice Cream Sandwich update for its flagship Galaxy S II? Then how about some back-and-forth from a Korean wireless carrier? SK Telecom, one of the largest wireless providers' in Samsung's home country of South Korea, tweeted out that updates for its Galaxy S II owners would begin tomorrow, March 13th (which is just a few hours away, with the time difference). Unfortunately, the tweet was deleted almost immediately. It said that the update would begin at 10 AM local time.

The second of a growing crop of massive smartphones is now available to purchase where you live! As long as you live in South Korea. The LG Optimus Vu and its odly square screen hits the homeland today, where eager Android fans can pick it up for a song and 999,900 won, or about nine hundred American greenbacks. Even for a country that loves its smartphones and loves home-grown LG, that's a stagerringly expensive price, novel form factor notwithstanding.

Believe it or don't, there's still plenty of people out there who just want a little flexible media playing in their mobile device, and at least six or seven of them haven't already bought an iPod Touch. For that market, Cowon makes some stylish and acoustically sound products, which they've lately been loading with Android. The latest is the Z2 Plenue, and no, we don't know what "Plenue" means, either. The device is on sale in South Korea now, but probably won't make it outside of Asia for a few months at the very least.

Who needs Beats Audio? Samsung has just announced they've partnered with the Swedish headphone and audio company Jays and are looking to add some audio bliss to smartphones and devices coming in February 2012. You've probably seen their popular v-Jays and t-Jays headphones in the past and starting next month Samsung will be bundling with them and offering great deals to buyers.